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All across Wisconsin from Civic Media.
This is Up North News Radio.
Now, live from our Lake Minnesota studio, here's the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Breitler.
Well, hey there Wisconsin, good morning.
It is 6.06 on this Thursday morning, February 20th, 2025, two days until the Brewer's first spring training game, 35 days till the season opener, that's right, five weeks from today.
39 days till the home opener.
It's another beautiful day to have you here up north.
Live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're listening across the civic media radio network or on the app or by podcast or Facebook or YouTube.
We appreciate you starting your day right here.
My question for you is kind of a smart alecky one, but are you noticing my tan starting to fade already?
I just, I don't know.
Maybe I need some more time off.
That's not getting any sympathy from nobody.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
That is something
that no one cares about because it's six degrees.
Is it six degrees there in beautiful radio parks?
It's six degrees and we have, we have us, we have, I have six degrees to hand out.
I'm keeping one for myself.
I have
five degrees to hand
out.
Well there, I've got four of them here in Chippewa, seven in Hayward, five in Amory, nine in Wasaw, seven in Rapids.
La Crosse is coming in at five below.
You know, to quote the one Keenan Thompson, what's up with that?
Green Bay at 13, Madison with six, Milwaukee at eight.
I finally finished watching the Saturday Night Live special.
We went to bed before it was done.
Watched the last half hour last night with Paul McCartney on there.
And whoever said that he is sounding more and more like Catherine Hepburn was spot on.
I mean, I love you, Paul.
I do.
But, you know, you don't
have to
do this.
I
really do not think that.
He needed to be the last.
It should have been Adam Sandler.
That would have been so great.
Yeah.
What a send off that would have been or.
just cut it right there because those last couple of things, you know, they weren't necessarily the John Belushi movie was weird.
It's weird.
Oh, yeah.
Where he's where he's in the graveyard.
I'd forgotten all about this.
It's like 1979, I think that he does this movie about how he's outlived all of the cast members and he's in the cemetery as an old man going, why did I live?
And I mean, it's very bittersweet.
What's funny is
that
like a lot of SNL sketches, it suffers from just
A terrible ending.
You're like, how did I live?
I
danced.
Okay.
I just danced.
Okay.
He just starts dancing and that's the end of it.
Oh, okay.
Well, anyway, uh, where was I was giving temperatures, which means I got to give you Brittany Merlot's state forecast.
Then I'll tell you what's on the program today.
Uh, temperatures start to swing in our favor today.
She writes and continue to climb into the weekend with much warmer weather right around the corner.
But, and this is the part Greg doesn't like.
It's expected to bring a wintery mix along with it.
Some will see snow, others rain.
Here's the state forecast for this morning.
Today, a mix of sun and clouds, not quite as cold.
Highs in the low 20s and a northwest wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour.
Tonight, mostly clear and crisp.
Her word, not mine.
Single digits for lows statewide with a light westerly wind.
Coming up on the program this morning at being Thursday, we're going to talk to Joseph Pecky.
We're going to talk about what's in Governor Evers' proposed state budget.
And I'm going to sound a familiar theme here about getting the work done because I'm seeing a lot of Republican response to this about, oh, the size of the budget and all the things that are in it because there's work to do.
Somebody wants to do the work.
somebody else just wants to collect a paycheck and vote no on everything.
So we'll talk to Joseph Pecky a bit about that, basically the difference between workhorses and show ponies.
In our second hour, we will be joined by two legislators, two members of the Legislative Black Caucus, State Representative Sequana Taylor and State Senator Dora Drake.
I'm 20 days into the month already, but because of vacation and scheduling, we finally get a chance to talk about Black History Month with these two legislators.
And I guess it turned out to be a timely delay because it was just yesterday that the Wisconsin Assembly queued the applause here for the first time in more than seven years.
Republicans in the Assembly allowed passage of a clean resolution honoring Black History Month.
There, I'm gonna give you, that was for the first seven years where they continually, you know, blocked things that the legislative black caucus wanted to get done.
But we'll talk to Representative Sequana Taylor and State Senator Dora Drake about, you know, what was different this time around and also talk about ongoing both
problems, challenges, and opportunities.
Also, Selena Heller will join us with the story of a Wisconsin farmer facing a huge loss of income because of President Trump's scattershot slashing of the federal government.
So we've got all that coming up.
Of course, we've got your input as well, either by phone at 855-75Civic or text us at 855-75Civic.
Or of course, if you're watching on Facebook or YouTube, you can put a comment there, Tony writing from Ashland, how DEI of them to pass a Black History Month resolution.
It's true, you think of the one year that they wouldn't want to pass one.
It would be this year, but.
I stopped trying to understand a lot of what happens on one side of the legislative chamber quite some time ago.
612 is the time right now.
And as I was looking through the headlines and things to talk about today, I thought, well, before we even get to the news, we've got our own little announcement here at UpNorth News.
We are going to be announcing later today some of the details of our first ever live event.
It's going to be in Madison on Wednesday, March 12th in the evening at the Overture Center.
They're on State Street in downtown Madison, just a couple of blocks away from the Capitol, basically across the street from where Greg is right now.
No, no, no, no, where the Civic Media World headquarters are.
Greg is at Radio Park in Racine.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put you in the transporter there for a minute.
Where
am
I,
Pat?
No, I'm here in Racine.
Yeah um and uh Tony you got me.
He said he puts Pat your live now.
No, what I mean by a live event is one with a live audience where you can come in and and see us and don't have to
call out everything
Tony.
So, what what are we doing?
What are we doing with this live event?
Uh it's about the state supreme court race that's coming up on April 1st.
This is a
very important race.
You know this because you listen to this fine program and this fine radio network.
But we want more people to understand the stakes involved in this race.
And it's not just about the campaign ads, you know, is, you know, Brad Schimmel and the rape kits and Susan Crawford and how she handled some court cases.
There are real issues at play here that have impact on people's lives.
And so we're going to have, it's basically a 90 minute forum with three 30 minute panel discussions.
And they're going to focus on the economy and jobs and climate.
One's going to focus on reproductive health rights.
One's going to focus on education because this Supreme Court at some point is going to be asked to consider a lawsuit challenging act 10.
At another point, it's going to be asked to consider a lawsuit challenging the voucher schools program.
So there are all these things to talk about, and we're going to get some nice names up on these panels.
State Representative Francesca Hong is going to be a member of a panel.
Former Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes is going to be on one.
State Senator Kelder Royce will join an OBGYN.
and a woman who has shared her abortion care story with us in the past on a reproductive health care panel.
So all of that to come up on Wednesday, March 12th at the Overshift Center.
I will get you details tomorrow on how you can go online.
We're gonna set up the page today to get tickets.
How much of the tickets you say?
They're free.
They're free.
We just want you to register ahead of time.
And if we get a good crowd, it's kind of like NFL games.
Remember the old blackout rules?
If we get a pretty good in-person crowd, then we're just going to open it up to live streaming.
I mean, I think we're going to live stream it anyway, but we'd really like to build up the audience first.
So yeah, and Adam noting on YouTube live show in my area.
Yes.
So we're looking forward to that, Adam.
So more to come about that in the coming days for our first ever Up North News Radio live event.
Roger puts a note on Facebook.
It's like he looked at my notes or something.
One of the first headlines that I wanted to talk about was the abrupt news late yesterday that Northland College in Ashland
is now going to close for good.
You will recall that it was a little over a year ago.
Northland College announced that they were in dire financial straits and they were looking for ways to stay open.
They tried to engage in some aggressive fundraising and they determined yesterday in a Facebook post, the College Board of Trustees said they will close the college up in Ashland.
The statement says, despite the collaborative efforts of the entire Northland family, we no longer have the resources needed to navigate the economic and demographic storms, endangering small liberal arts institutions today.
With declining enrollment and soaring costs, it takes more to operate the college than we raise in tuition.
Even after enacting aggressive measures to cut costs and raise revenue, Northland College does not have a sustainable path forward.
So they will be closing at the end of this academic year.
Some very sad news there.
Obviously it'll also be
part of our discussion with Dan Schumacher, who had been athletic director at UW Eau Claire, now was doing that position and much more up at Northland College in Ashland.
And obviously our hearts go out to the entire Ashland community and the folks there at Northland.
It's always tough to see these smaller, more intimate college settings not be able to make it.
It's not just bad for the community as Tony notes on YouTube.
It will be bad for the whole town in the area as well.
But it again means that your choices for higher education more and more end up going to some of the larger campuses where
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with them.
I'm just saying there are fewer options to choose a smaller campus if that's where you want to go.
So that's the latest from the Ashland area on that.
Let's take a quick look at sports here because there really wasn't anything last night to pass along.
We'll tell you that tonight.
The Milwaukee Bucks will host the LA Clippers.
The Badger Men's basketball team will next be playing on Saturday morning.
at 11 a.m.
They will be playing Oregon.
Coverage will begin at 10 a.m.
on several stations across the Civic Media Radio Network in Amory, Rapids, Racine, Kenosha, and Richland Center.
Also, the Badger men's hockey team will be playing Notre Dame on Friday and Saturday, and coverage can be heard on WFHR in Wisconsin Rapids starting at 7 p.m.
on Friday and Saturday.
The Badger women's hockey team will be playing this Friday and Saturday afternoons at Bemidji State in Northern Minnesota and the Marquette men travel to Philadelphia.
They will be playing at Villanova come Friday night.
All right, we will pause here.
We will take care of some more of the headlines that are happening around Wisconsin and get into this whole notion of
who actually wants to get things done at the state capitol when it comes to the budget.
And so much more, we appreciate you being on board for Up North News Radio on this Thursday morning, February 20th.
I'm Pat Critewell, wherever you're listening around Wisconsin on this Thursday when you're here, you're Up North.
We'll be right back.
You're listening to Civic Media.
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
58 years ago today.
That's part of today's history lesson.
That'll be coming up in just 30 minutes here on Up North News Radio on this Friday or on this Thursday.
Looking ahead to Friday.
You know what it was, Greg?
I saw you right there.
I got mixed up on the dates and immediately I thought, oh my gosh, I forgot to ask Greg who's at the laughing tap this weekend.
Well, of course I did because it's not Friday yet.
It's it's been it's been a week already.
Look look at it.
Look at what Greg and I both have here He's got your your Roy Kent whistle whistle shirt on
whistle
and I've got my Roy Kent coffee mug Which again normally only comes out on Fridays, but today I was just like I I need a little extra kick today, so
We brought out Roy Kent a little early.
And again, for folks that didn't, didn't watch Ted Lasso, why, why do we have a fixation on Roy Kent?
Because he, he can say things we can't say on the radio.
He speaks for all of us.
And not just on the radio, but in civil society,
frankly.
I, I, I have to call attention to a.
Social media post from a reporter with the Wisconsin State Journal.
I don't have it in front of me right now.
I'm sorry that I don't have his name, but the assembly was in session yesterday in Madison, which Greg Bacchus, nowhere near Madison at this point, by the way.
They were talking about cell phone bands in classrooms.
And this report you see very, very quietly zooms in on his cell phone in the press gallery and there's a legislator looking just like any other student at school.
The, the, the cell phone is in his hand just below the level of his desk and he's busy surfing on the cell phone, even though you could hear the presiding officer early on saying that, you know, cell phone use is not allowed on the floor of the Wisconsin state assembly.
And I could.
I can make fun of that because I was part of the state senate that passed the bill banning the use of cell phones and cars and I cannot tell you that in the what 14 years or so 15 years since that bill passed
I can't tell you that I have, you know, 100% never used a cell phone in the car.
Um, but I've also gone over the speed limit a couple of times too.
So, you know, it's, it's one of those, it's one of those functions that we can't give it up.
We can't give up our smartphones,
it
seems.
Though I, I, I have to say I did have the embarrassment of forgetting the, the one time it's always the one time I forgot to turn off the ringer on my cell phone.
And it was, uh, I was in the Senate chambers and there was a floor debate going on and I'd set up personalized rings for different people.
And I don't remember what the joke was between us, but when this person called me, the ringtone was from Monty Python.
And all you hear in the Senate chambers is bring out your dad just like fumbling with the phone and putting it away.
So
well, if anybody has any dead near you, bring it out.
You heard the man.
Tony noting here, you can pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I mean, in today's temperature, you can pry it from your cold, alive hands too.
Yeah, very true.
Adam puts here that he is definitely going to want to attend the Madison live show so that he can participate in the live show secret show.
The secret show being the one we do during the commercial breaks on social media.
How do we call it?
Secret show.
And we tell you about this because someday it's going to be, hey, Pat, what got you fired from that radio gig?
Secret show.
Secret show.
All right, back to the legislature and some of the other news that they were working on there.
There have been many posts by Republicans.
And the latest example is from, well, actually it was all of the state Senate Republicans together made a video.
and put it up on social media.
And each one talking about something about Governor Evers budget that they don't like.
Even as they nod that, yeah, Evers is trying to cut taxes and Evers is trying to increase spending and schools are a good thing, but they just don't like the way that he's doing it.
But the point that I want to make is that it begins with Howard Markline of the Joint Finance Committee.
And he engages in this, this visual trick that I'm going to call out every single time.
So apologies if you get bored with it, but somebody else is hearing this for the first time.
And it's where he or any Republican for that matter puts the budget, prints it out.
and says, you know, here's the governor's budget.
I believe he said it was 1,917 pages and it looks on par with the budget bills that I dealt with back in the day as well.
He's like, this is just so much and we're going to work off and he's got a smaller stack of papers on the other side of the screen.
And he thinks he's making this point about government being bloated or something like that.
And no, that's not what I see at all when I see that because
There are somewhere around five million people in this state who need a good education, who need good roads, who need clean natural resources, who need economic development programs.
You're not going to fit all that on, you know, three sheets of paper.
In other words, that pile of papers to me represents work.
That's the sign of a governor or a president or whomever that wants to get the work done and when you show me a much shorter stack What you're telling me is there are things that you either don't want to acknowledge like the child care crisis in this state or You'll pay them lip service or you'll do the least amount possible or as is happening with the Trump administration right now You're deferring responsibility
and saying, you know, we might have the power of the purse here in Congress or the legislature, but we're going to defer whatever the chief executive wants, whatever in this case, President Trump wants to do.
And there's been such a loss of checks and balances as a result.
Now, again, we're only in what the fifth week of the Trump administration.
But everything tells me what I'm seeing from the Republican Congress so far is that it's really not that much different than
the Republicans and the legislature who want to do everything on a few flimsy sheets of paper, call it good, go home for eight months and collect a paycheck along the way.
And that's just not going to fly.
I have left myself less than a minute because I don't want to pop off on this just too much, except to say I did put up on my personal social media page, one of the angriest posts that I've put in some time.
And it was a reaction to Donald Trump's words yesterday.
Blaming Ukraine for the war and calling their leader Zelensky a dictator.
This from a guy who wanted to undermine American elections.
Now again, a few Republicans are rightly calling out the fact that it was Russia and Putin who are at fault here.
But will they at some point finally stand up to him?
Or will they be as compliant and complicit as they've been to this point so far?
Joseph Heckey joins us after this.
You're up north.
Welcome back on this Thursday morning.
Up North News Radio, Pat Crightlow here.
Joseph Heckey over there, which means it must be Thursday morning.
Joe, how are you?
I'm okay.
How are you?
I'm okay.
I'm still I'm still recovering.
I was I was kind of ambushed In a way by one Todd Alba on his fine radio show yesterday during the noon hour he launched into a blistering attack on Governor Evers budget address and while he was focused more on the style and as much as I agreed with a lot of the substance that the governor was talking about
I did harken back to those days as a legislator where I sat there and said, do we really have to do this?
You know, the state of the state, stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down, stand up,
sit down.
Fight by fight.
Yeah, and then a budget address.
And now you're bringing in the marching band for two speeches as well.
And I get the feeling you and I both agree there's probably a better way to do this.
Yeah, we live in an era where you could tape this kind of thing, sitting behind your desk and release it on YouTube.
And I think before too much longer, that's probably what will happen.
But the important information that is conveyed is important.
There should be transparency into what the governor wants the state to spend money on.
And I thought the governor did a great job of laying out those priorities.
This is a pro kid, pro taxpayer, pro farmer, pro Wisconsin family budget that does a lot of good for a lot of people while also
building in additional cash reserves for when the chaos coming out of Washington DC and the Trump tariffs or the Trump trade war start to impact Wisconsin families even more acutely.
And so this is a responsible budget.
It's a budget that I think a lot of people can support.
And it's an important marker to lay down even if
Republicans are going to do what they've done the last couple of budgets, which is say, that's nice.
Thank you.
We're going to put this in a circular file and do our own budget.
But it laid out some markers for how to cut taxes in ways that put more money in the pocket of working in middle class families, how to protect farmers from the worst excesses of a Trump administration that is out of control in Washington DC.
New innovative ways.
to think about things like healthcare.
You know, Pat, you're old enough to remember the days when Wisconsin was a laboratory of democracy.
When things like welfare reform happened here in Wisconsin and it worked well enough that the national folks copied the idea.
Well, Governor Evers had one of those last night.
Wants Wisconsin to be the first state in the country to audit health insurers who are denying too many claims.
That's a novel idea.
No other state does it.
And it's something that can help make sure that health insurers are held accountable.
People have more understanding of what they're paying for, what they're getting, putting patients and doctors in charge of health care as opposed to these insurance companies.
So there was a lot in there that was really good.
And frankly, it sets him up very well to run for reelection if he decides to do that.
and see that that gets to my point about the you know the substance uh rather than the style or the format or anything like that i mean do you do you make it more of an an infomercial or whatever that to me is all window dressing compared to the substance and here was the thing i noted from the republican responses from the the flurry of press releases that go out
They didn't have any better ideas.
They would acknowledge in there.
Well, while the governor, you know, is cutting taxes or while the governor is, you know, looking out for healthcare cause or while the governor trying to clean up the water.
Yeah.
Why don't you stop right there?
That's what the governor is doing.
What do you got?
And some of this is stuff that is literally taken right from the Trump playbook in ways that I think makes sense.
Tony Evers says, let's do no taxes on tips.
for shift workers in the service industry, any other industry that really thrives on tips, survives on tips, we're not going to tax those.
That's a policy that the notion that nobody on the Republican side stood up to clap for that when what he was doing was actually extending an olive branch and saying, hey, this may be an idea that came from the mouth of Donald Trump, but it's a good one.
And so we're gonna do it.
The notion that they couldn't stand up and clap for that, it just speaks to the absurdity of the environment and the way that room is just ridiculous.
Yes, it is.
And I, again, would have to see the substance of the Evers proposal.
But you know, my, my little detector always goes off with something like this, like, you know, attacks on tips.
All right, does every hedge fund manager going to get paid a dollar for a salary, and then everything else counts as a tip.
So to me, the, it's always, you know, the devil's in the details.
And so if, if done right,
You're right.
This can be extremely novel.
And I really did.
I said this yesterday, but I'll say it again.
I love the audit thing because that's just what, you know, Elon Musk's minions claim to be doing right now is, oh, we're just auditing all of this federal spending.
Well, if auditing is such a great thing, then how about if we actually use it for the good of people who are getting jerked around by health insurance companies over and over again?
Of course, the Elon Musk Doge version of auditing is going to USAspending.gov, something anyone who can hear my voice can do.
And when they do it, they say, oh, we found this contract.
We're going to cancel it and save $8 billion when actually the contract was for $8 million.
I guess they forgot to carry a couple of ones somewhere in there.
But yeah, I mean, this was a common sense proposal.
lots of popular ideas from expanding Medicaid to extending maternal Medicaid for new moms and babies, pointing out in the address as the governor did, that Arkansas is the only other state in the country that has not extended Medicaid coverage for new moms and babies to one year.
Right now it's two months.
That's not good enough.
Most maternal deaths come between
You know, the 61st day in the first year when we're talking about maternal mortality and when we're talking about the stats here in Wisconsin, it is worst for black moms and babies.
We can do something.
The feds are saying this money is here.
You can have it.
And the only other state in the country that hasn't done it is Arkansas.
Come on, man, we don't want to be lumped in with Arkansas on
anything.
I still think there's going to be a lot of pressure from his own members since, you know, some, some 90 people in the assembly, Republicans and Democrats alike are the co-sponsors of this.
And I just want to say right there, because this part of the speech speaks to the type of politician Tony Evers is and why I believe he's the most popular politician in Wisconsin.
He is the most popular politician in Wisconsin by polling.
I'm saying, I think it's because he's not an in your face, nasty guy.
He could have called Robin Voss out by name.
He made all of the arguments.
He said, listen, this passed the state Senate.
By the way, that state Senate vote was 32 to one.
And in the assembly, a majority, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have co-sponsored the bill to do just this.
But rather than call out Robin Voss by name in a way that somebody like Donald Trump would, he just says, listen, we can't have
This much support for something and have any one person stand in the way of it.
That's the Tony Evers approach.
That's what the public wants are people who are interested in getting things done, not in calling people names.
No, not his style at all.
But
Then we get to the Elon Musk's and the Donald Trump's out there and it takes us to our next topic.
And that is Elon Musk deciding that he would like to play in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race and committing, you know, three quarters of a million dollars.
I'm sure it's going to go much, much higher than that by the time this is all said and done.
And I have already
given my little spiel on, you know, we should know who's paying for all these ads and not be able to hide behind these very generic sounding names.
But all we can do in the meantime is tell people the world's richest man wants to help buy a Supreme Court seat.
And if that's the case, it usually doesn't mean because he's looking out for you.
Well, we can also tell people why and put some context around it.
Just days ago, Tesla sued the state of Wisconsin.
And two days after that lawsuit was filed is when Elon Musk started paying for ads for Brad Schimmel.
Now, I don't know if there's a backroom deal, but I know what Elon Musk got for the 250 million he spent to get Donald Trump elected, which is he gets to be co-president.
We don't know what the deal is with Brad Schimmel, but we know that one of Elon's companies is now in court, suing the state of Wisconsin
to try to get something done that's going to make him even richer and even more money.
And this doesn't just speak to the way that Brad Schimmel is hanging a for sale sign on his campaign for state Supreme Court.
It also gets to the larger issues of is this really how we want to run this country, that the richest people can buy power
buy access and then make more money.
And one of the rejoinders going around, I was like, Oh, Elon Musk, he's not worried about your money.
Who cares if he's got your social security number and your bank account?
He couldn't possibly want to be any richer.
Malarkey rich guys are in the in are in the business of making money and making more money.
And the way I know that is that
if $400 billion or whatever Elon Musk is worth was enough, he wouldn't care that the Trump tax cuts are expiring, right?
Find me a rich guy who says, you know what?
I've got enough.
That's not how they operate, folks.
And so in the case of Elon Musk, the co-president of the United States, he's coming for more money and he's doing it in shady backroom ways that should disgust any of us who work hard
trying to provide for our families and can't even dream of the kind of extraordinary wealth and access to power that somebody like Elon Musk has.
No, and to pay for these tax cuts for billionaires will require the kind of cuts that you've started to outline here, but that affect real people.
And again, it only starts with saying, oh, we're not going to cut.
this thing that you like, but we are going to cut X number of dollars.
And they expect that nobody's going to connect the dots.
You can't cut X amount of dollars without cutting this thing that we like.
But they just don't want to actually say the words, I'm going to cut your health care.
Right.
But that's what they're going to do.
Just yesterday, Donald Trump endorsed the House budget plan.
That bill calls for cutting between $880 million and $2 trillion.
out of Medicaid.
1.4 million Wisconsinites rely on Medicaid in some form or fashion.
Tens of thousands of Wisconsin businesses bill Medicaid.
They are slashing Medicaid to pay for these tax cuts.
Who's that going to benefit?
The Elon Musk's of the world.
Who's that going to hurt?
People who like a woman Jessica I met a couple weeks ago.
She was a Medicaid baby.
Her mom was on Medicaid because Jessica had access to healthcare because her mom did.
Her mom was able to have enough support where she was able to get an education, go to school, become a nurse.
She's finally retired now, but that mom was a nurse through the COVID pandemic.
Jessica and her husband both work.
They have employer-sponsored healthcare coverage, but it's not enough because their nine-year-old son has special needs.
So Medicaid is able to step in and do some things that their employer sponsored coverage does not, which means that Jessica and her husband can continue to work.
If Medicaid goes away, if those supports aren't there for their son, one of them will likely have to come out of the workforce and be a full-time caregiver or more time caregiver for their son.
If the money goes away, the needs aren't going to go away.
That's going to impact not only the economy, but the workforce.
And it's just cruel.
And it's also what Elon Musk can buy another social media company or a sixth yacht.
I mean, this is nonsense.
Yeah.
But the cruelty is the point, and that's where we'll end is the WIAA, which oversees high school sports in Wisconsin, being essentially forced to change the way that the trans athletes could conceivably compete, which, near as I can tell, not a problem.
in Wisconsin or anywhere for that matter of any significance.
In testimony before the legislature last year, it was said that there might be a half a dozen trans high school athletes in the state of Wisconsin.
Half a dozen, that would be six.
Now, I am glad that it is the WIAA as opposed to legislators and lawmakers intervening here, but even the WIAA I think is overstepping.
When you're only talking about a half dozen individuals and you're talking about school districts coaches parents administrators at the local level They can work this out Like I'm a football coach.
You know that I've coached high school football over the last seven eight years We don't line up the 80-pound soak-and-wet freshman against the returning all-conference 280 pound senior offensive linemen in practice because that's a safety concern
And so when there are safety concerns, coaches and parents in school districts can work this out, the notion that we need big government or big governing body, one size fits all solutions to these is not right.
And the cost of it in terms of vilifying and othering kids who are just trying to figure it out like their peers is really sad.
And so I'm mixed emotions as you can tell on this, but overall, let the kids play.
Parents and coaches can figure it
out.
Yeah.
Because again, it has so very little to do with the outcome and more about the cruelty.
Joseph Pecky, as always, thank you so much, Heavy.
Good start to the weekend.
Talk to you later.
See
you.
Back with more after this.
You're up north.
Today's history lesson kicks off with the Jay Giles band, coincidentally led by a guy named John Giles.
What?
Yeah, I know.
Crazy.
He is 79 years old today.
Could that, again, some songs you just go, 80s, boom.
That is what an 80s song sounded like back in the day.
Hey, happy birthday to the US Postal Service.
George Washington signed an act
233 years ago today, creating the United States Postal Service.
Just about as old, Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Senator is 83 years old today.
A guy whose tenure has us a lot of times singing this little diddy by the Pet Shop Boys.
That was a weird
turn.
There's a little hiccup there, but we connected the dots.
You did.
OK.
OK.
I got to stop stepping on Dusty Springfield here at the Lake Rate.
Dusty Springfield singing here at the Pet Shop Boys.
Dusty Springfield hadn't been on the charts since 1969 when the Pet Shop Boys asked her to sing on What Have I Done to Deserve This, which peaked on this day in 1988.
Sir Charles Barkley is 62 years old today This is one of the reasons I like tiktok and again when it first came out I didn't think I'd like tiktok now I love it because I have never watched the NBA on TNT I've never watched their pregame or whatever.
Yeah, but people will put up clips of Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal and the other guys on the set and I will I will end up crying
I'm laughing so hard at these guys.
It's a great, you know, the show's won a lot of awards and everything.
I just, I don't watch the NBA regularly.
So I'm thankful to have a social media platform so that when, you know, when Charles is doing something goofy and everybody's crying, laughing, I can join in with the fun.
I know, I
agree with
you.
I love the banter between the two of them.
It's just so special.
And the thing about both Barkley and Shack is, and again, this is kind of an old age thing, but I'm one of those that remembers both of them in college.
And I don't, again, I don't watch a lot of college basketball, but they were beasts and you're going, how are men this big able to do what they do?
I mean, Barkley was so fast and Shack was so powerful and fast as well.
And now they sit there and make fun of each other.
There's a bunch of old fat guys, but.
Boy, did they have a motor on them.
So it turns out they're
funny.
Pat called you fat.
I didn't.
I think you guys are great.
Don't kill me.
He would be the first.
He would go along with that just fine.
It's all good.
Leena Heller from Open Earth News joins us as well.
Ms.
Heller, good morning.
How are
you?
Good morning.
I'm good.
It's cold out again.
As I
say, is the kid finally back in school here?
Well, she has what we did when she was out of school.
We did all of the fun outside activities like you blow bubbles and they freeze and then you freeze your noodles and you freeze your pants.
We
did freeze our noodles, yes.
You're the best mom.
You take your kids out when it's 30 below and
say, we're going to
blow some bubbles and watch them crash on the sidewalk.
I
think that's great.
Yeah.
And then I said, I'm cold.
Let's go in.
And she played in the snow.
Oh, I love that.
Well, kids.
Yeah, Barkley and Shaq like Tony.
Thank you.
Oh, that puts up on Ashlyn.
They are on YouTube.
They almost have the chemistry of a crite lo and box.
Oh, Tony.
Nice.
No, you want chemistry at Selena and whiskers who has again walked into the frame here and
said, Oh, are
you on the radio?
You must love me now.
Back to the birthdays.
Cindy Crawford is 59 years old today.
and singer Rihanna is 37.
She
is royalty in Barbados where she's from.
I
can imagine.
Oh yeah and as I'm going through her I like a lot of her songs but this was I think her second single and this was 16 years ago
and
I still I'd love this song.
Yeah just me too.
And not just because it, you know, as a callback to another 80s song, but that's another matter.
The late Kurt Cobain was born this day in 1967.
I was going to set this up with a joke of what would Kurt Cobain say if he were here with us today.
He'd say, hello, hello, hello.
But I didn't.
The Nirvana frontman was born in Aberdeen, Washington, got his first guitar on his 14th birthday.
And I hate to say it, but that was 13 years later.
He was gone.
Another late, great rock and roller gone too soon.
Walter Becker from Steely Dan.
He and Donald Fagan met while attending college in New York City and went on to become legendary in terms of songwriting and what they did in the studio.
Selena, we've given you all these options here.
We've got Rihanna, Nirvana, Steely Dan, any of this clicking with you or do we
have
to keep looking?
Keep going.
I've got the White Stripes next.
How about that?
The White Stripes on this day in 2009 played this song on the final episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
It's
also the theme to his podcast.
Yes,
it
is.
It ended up being the last performance by the group which split up two years later.
It says here.
That was a good choice.
I saw them live.
They were amazing.
Okay, Selena, we'll go for culture.
On this day, in 1877, Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake debuted in Moscow.
You a ballet fan?
Well, we've taken ballet classes, not me, but...
That would... Your kid gets to do... You're the best mom.
All right, we're gonna pause here and when we come back, Selena Heller will talk to us after Brittany Merleau's forecast about how Wisconsin farmers are feeling the pinch because of the wrecking ball that Donald Trump and Elon Musk
are taking to certain programs that are going to cut into the income of Wisconsin farm families.
This is Up North News Radio, live from Lake Wissota on the Civic Media Radio Network.
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